A brief history

7th Mar 2014
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by Mark Hodges

I have always had a natural inclination to find out how things work even as a small child when we travelled the world. Thankfully my family loved to travel and we lived in different European countries such as the UK and Germany and then eventually settling in Australia. My experience whilst travelling and seeing the world enabled me to realise that businesses come in all shapes and sizes, i wanted to realise my dream of finding wonderful gems and ensuring that they found a home with someone who would love it just as much as I did the first time I saw it.

I started my working life as an apprentice watchmaker in Brisbane in 1986 and after successfully completing my apprenticeship 4 years later I was a qualified watchmaker (one of the very few in Australia). I have always loved the intricacies and fragility of watches and their internal mechanics. They way some of them are powered be it: self winding, air pressure, batteries they all fascinated me. The luxuriousness of the watches and clocks really drew me in and I have been in love with them ever since.

I travelled back to the UK and when I returned in 2002 I was ready to open my own business, first I was exclusively on-line working from home and dealing in small items. However demand was such that it was now time to branch out into antiques and the like, so I bought and sold paintings, watches, jewellery, armoires, chairs, chaises, larger clocks, tables and dining suites. This was my business until my recent rebrand where I decided to focus on Luxury vintage items again more so than antiques. I rebranded to Harrington & Co. in 2013 and I have never looked back.